No, Obama does not got this. No, he is not Brilliant. No, this was never his plan.

Speaking at a news conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Kerry said that al-Assad “could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.”

The U.S. secretary of state described that as an impossible scenario.

“He isn’t about to do it,” Kerry said. “And it can’t be done, obviously.”

The State Department later sought to clarify Kerry’s comment as a “rhetorical argument,” and one U.S. official called it a “major goof,” adding that America’s top diplomat “clearly went off script.”

“There is no one in the administration who is taking this Syria proposal seriously,” the official said.

90. +1 n/t

114. it strikes me as laughable and wildly arrogant

the way that people talk with such assurance about how horrible the handling has been, so sure that there must be some simple solution that Obama refuses to use out of evil or corruption or stupidity. Maybe it's a horrible situation for which there is no easy answer. Maybe there isn't a single person on the planet who could come up with anything better. I know that the majority had their way, we would have walked away and done nothing, and it would have constituted absolute moral failure.

If no more people are gassed and we accomplish that without having to use force, We win. We all win. You, me, Obama, the human race in general, everyone but Assad. It's look like that might happen and looks like once again, Obama has made a really really big bluff and pulled it off. If you are still reaching for a way to paint Obama in a bad light at this stage in the game, well, I find your arguments all the less persuasive.

I'm glad Obama didn't walk away from this, I'm glad he was willing to go out on a limb and stake out an unpopular position to try and make the right thing happen here.

130. It doesn't have to be planned.

As they say in baseball, if you put the ball in play, you get results. Obama has taken strong, correct (imo) steps all along on this. That increases the odds for a positive outcome that might not necessarily be known in advance. Compare that to Bush the Lesser.

33. Actually that doesn't seem to be the OP's point

I suppose if you're operating on a binary scale where a person can only be extremely brilliant or extremely stupid, sure. But nobody thinks like that.

This was not he plan put forth by the Obama administration. This is Vladimir Putin, jumping on something Kerry said off-handedly, Syria agreeing with the idea, and the Obama administration being caught by surprise.

It's not that Obama and Kerry are dumb men. They're not. it's that they're not the only smart guys involved here. Obama, Putin, Assad, Kings Abdullah and Abdullah, Netanyahu, Khamenei, all of these guys are bright dudes who are playing their own games and who will catch the other people involved by surprise. This time it was Obama's turn to go "wait, what?"

And if he decides to go with the idea, that's great, I'm happy that he makes that choice. But he didn't see it coming. if he had he wouldn't have spent all this time, energy, and political capital to drum up domestic support for a war with Syria.

What I wonder about are the DU posters who have been hoping to have some dead Syrians in the near future, who are very suddenly embracing a non-war solution and acting like they were behind it all along. Sorry motherfuckers, you don't get to accuse me of wanting to personally gas people myself if i don't support the president's call for war, and then get to act like you were in on it all along.

59. Oh, I have NO doubts that they're smarter than their "supporters" here

But that's not setting the bar terribly high, if you ask me.

Did Kerry make a mistake (I hate the word "gaffe," it's as bad as the "-gate" suffix!) No, because to make a mistake you have to be trying to do something. He was simply answering a question at a conference with his own opinion, not setting forth a policy that could succeed or fail. There's just no mistake to be made. According to CNN, this is how it went:

Assad "could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week," Kerry said during a news conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "But he isn't about to do it and it can't be done obviously."

In the same breath, Kerry makes it very clear he doesn't believe this is anything more than a rhetorical idea - he holds that Assad will never agree to such a thing, no way no how.

So when Assad comes up and says "Yeah, I'll do that," with the backing of Russia... Well, saying such a thing would catch the administration by surprise. That's not putting down the administration, it's simply noting that that's some shit that they not only didn't expect, but had clearly stated they did not expect.

I think that Kerry and Obama were very sincere about wanting to bomb Syria, very serious. if they're willing ot take this opportunity, that's great. But let's not pretend this was their design all along.

65. That's not how it went

This is what he said:

"When asked by a reporter in London whether there was anything Assad's government could do or offer to stop a military strike, Kerry answered:

"Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it), but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

10. the part where some unnamed sourced says “There is no one in the administration who is taking this

seriously." But then the ACTUAL PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and COMMANDER IN CHIEF says he will work with Kerry to run this to ground and follow up to see if this is a credible offer and he's willing to pursue it as a way to avert war and also stop proliferation and use of chemical weapons.

139. attempting to validate present day Obama hate, using the same old arguement.....I voted for hime 2x

1/2 the time these people stated that they only reason they voted for Obama was there were no other choices, not because it was a pro election effort.

This "I voted for him twice" crap sounds more and more like, "Of course I'm not racist, I know some black people that are really cool" or "Of course I'm not a homophobe, a know two gay people and I really like them".

141. Voting for Obama twice is the new "I'm not racist, I have black friends"?

Denial is confession! BTW -- Have you stopped stealing from your employer yet?

Of course nothing the President did could ever have led to the falling out from his base. He's totally an innocent by-stander of his own actions which are wholly blameless and innocent in all their manifestations. We're not real democrats. The whole anti-war thing is just a façade -- for racism, apparently. We're so racist we hate the black guy for wanting to blow-up brown people. If McCain's lily white ass was the one ordering the strikes, we'd totally be cheering this on. You found us out; you must be so proud of your mad internet profiling skills.

15. Russia likes this, because an international agreement strengthens and affirms Assad...

...as Syria's leader, moderates him, and elevates him in a three-way-deal to the level of Putin and Obama. That's not really desirable for anyone that wants to see him fall to the rebels - including the Obama Administration.

I'd have to agree this was probably a goof. It will be interesting to see what's done with it.

95. An international agreement, this one in particular, strengthens everyone

There's no international plan to remove Assad, or to run the mess over there if he does go down. If he stays, and the chemical weapons are gone, he's still got no walk in the park ahead of him. But any time the international community can come together to see international law enforced by peaceful means, that's a big win for everyone.

99. Too bad the U.S. didn't propose the surrender of the chemical

weapons as it's first resolution. Kerry 'stumbled' unto this and
I can't tell yet how pleased the admin is about it but since
it happened what else can the U.S. do but play along especially
since the strike plan has such little support internationally or
domestically.

122. "...I can't tell yet how pleased the admin is about it..."

And that is a huge difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney/McCain who would not be pleased at all at missing an opportunity to bomb/invade in order to "send a message".

It would have been interesting to see the reaction if, on the day after the chemical attack, Kerry had proposed that Syria give up its chemical weapons to avoid retaliation. (Or, I suppose, Lavrov could have taken the initiative as foreign minister of Assad's main backer.) It's impossible to rewrite history, but it is far from certain that this option would have been as enticing prior to all the threats and military posturing which have occurred since.

123. I think your proposal would have been quite interesting.

It might have worked, telling Syria to turn over all chemical
weapons AND gone ahead with the build up. After all, a
country would have to be brain dead to think the U.S. would
not use its big stick when it wants to.

21. Two things:

The State Department later sought to clarify Kerry’s comment as a “rhetorical argument,” and one U.S. official called it a “major goof,” adding that America’s top diplomat “clearly went off script.”

“There is no one in the administration who is taking this Syria proposal seriously,” the official said.

...1) The State Department said the part about Assad not doing it was rhetorical, not the condition for avoiding a strike. That interpretation is just silly. Why would the admistration strike if Assad actually agrees to turn over the weapons to have them destroyed?

101. Is it possible that...

...this was orchestrated by Obama and Kerry as a potential way out?

I say this because it's obvious that Syria is not Obama's project. This has PNAC/neocon fingerprints all over it. Obama saw the overwhelming outrage against war with Syria, and what did he do? He asked for a vote. I think he wanted an out--or at least he refused to solely carry that rancid bucket of neocon water all by himself.

Possibly, because the war backlash soared, they developed their own "out clause". Notice the State Department spokesperson speaks for Kerry and says Kerry's statement was wrong or rhetorical, or whatever? That's the neocons jumping in and defining that moment and saying, "Oh hell no!"

I know this...The PNAC/neocon brigade has had their sights on Syria for decades. Their plan laid out the countries they would target: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon. They want total domination of the region. No way in hell were we just staying long enough to lob a couple of cruise missiles, then head on home. Whatever those bastards concocted, would have put us there indefinitely--and it would be an explosive, paradigm-shifting scenario.

Maybe Kerry and Obama just said, "F this."

And I wouldn't put it past Putin to cooperate. He's sided with Syria against the US, but more importantly, Putin has sided with Iran over Israel. Iran has said that if the US bombs Syria, it will retaliate and bomb Israel. What do you want to bet that those horrible consequences would play out if the US bombs Syria??? That chain of events would spark events that would embroil our nation into war against Syria, Iran and their allies--including Russia.

I doubt Putin wants that garbage. We're talking the potential for nuclear weapons. Maybe Putin helped us play our way out if this?

The neocons think that we are stupid. They figured that we'd be sheep, as Obama led us into war. They probably figured that some of Obama's supporters would cheerleader us into Syria, just as the Bush supporters put on partisan blinders and justified Junior's every war crime.

Sorry, no. We're not that dumb.

I'm not saying that I have this right, but I know that Syria is part of the neocon game. Obama is not a neocon. I see signs of Obama backing out. We know our government lies to us, keeps the truth from us, so a scenario like this is entirely possible.

64. Yes, its a trainwreck you have to watch.

Or else you miss moments of epic stupidity like posting a road map of Moscow and claiming it was the flight-path of Morales' plane across Europe. And then they doubled down when the mistake was pointed out to them. I never laughed so hard in my life.

55. It's almost as funny as people who assume that Kerry would go

'off-script' on the single most important and predictable question he was going to get asked, that he would have not prepared an answer to that question, and that these developments happening in rapid succession is just Putin, Kerry, and Assad winging it without consulting one another.

68. So this is all dumb luck? nt

72. Maybe. Nothing has been signed, no weapons moved.

Putin jumped on an off-hand quote. Assad jumped too. It is in their benefit to do so, whether they have any intention of actually following through. Even if they don't, it gives Assad another day without being bombed.

It is in Obama's interest to delay the debate. He is bleeding support at home, the Senate is delaying the vote. He is pressing the case on the news and in a prime time address.

My gut opinion is that this was an opportunistic move by all involved and none of them are acting in good faith. Assad isn't going to turn over the weapons in a away that will satisfy the US. The US holds the excuse of non-compliance in their back pocket to use at the opportune time. Then, Obama can either try again with Congress, or strike out of an immediacy.

96. No kidding

Hello, stalker alert!

That was also coming from one of the people who loves to go into the group and shit stir. I've posted in that group maybe three times this year and possibly a few times before that, but I do read some of the stuff from time to time.

56. No kidding

81. They're so obnoxious

Some posters are acting like utter children. It's like Bieber fans. Everyone's a "hater" and every post a petulant mix of bragging, maniacal defensiveness and playground taunting. Obama would be SO proud I'm sure.

109. That comment wasn't very mature. n/t

121. And are firing talking points that directly contradict the last ones.

Assad must go! Murdered a hundred thousand! If we don't strike future dictators will use chemical weapons! Why don't you care about the (thousands/tens of thousands/millions/billions) Assad has killed!?

Obama totally didn't want to strike all along! This was just a ruse to get him to give up the weapons! All that matters is securing those specific weapons! The people Assad has killed don't matter, only the weapons do!

148. +10000000

57. Probably not for you

But this was pretty much well planned and well handled by Kerry-- he probably knew Assad and Russia were talking --- here it is

"When asked by a reporter in London whether there was anything Assad's government could do or offer to stop a military strike, Kerry answered:

"Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it), but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

120. If you even hold a lottery ticket's hope of "catching a break" from the right then you have no

right to expect one from the left. You have seen the right of late, correct?
Essentially the only folks in the world to the right of them are into stonings. Trying to appease the wicked fuckers builds up substantial toxicity and stink not easily washed off.

147. Yup +1

131. Oh - you wacky guys!

One second Obama is an a complete dictatorial genius of the likes of Dr. Evil who wants war more than anything else on the planet, the next he is a bumbling-stumbling Gerald Ford wannabe.

I wish you all would get you hate-screeds a little more on the consistent side - I am just getting a tad bit embarrassed for all you knee-jerk haters at the moment. Its like you are all just starting to mail it in. Come on, just try a little harder will you? I know you can do better!

132. Yes, you can still hate him all you want.

136. EVERYONE on this thread seems to have forgotten that Obama has surrounded himself with Republican,

DLC and other Right of Center advisers, most beholden to the MIC. The bomb Syria fuckup is the result of their bad advice. Putin stepped in and saved their asses with a diplomatic solution, based on a Kerry misspeak. Possibly adverting WWIII.
At no time was the United States on the correct side of this - again. For those of us paying attention, the Administration's rhetoric for bombing Syria was being taken from the same playbook as the lies and bullshit in the run up to the Iraq invasion. Only this time there really were WMD. Only the yellow cake was missing.